Tuesday, 3 January 2017

2016/17 Hastings International - Day 6

GM Allan Stig Rasmussen continues to lead the 2016/17 Hastings International, beating closest challenger GM Mark Hebden in round 6. The win for Rasmussen moves him to 5.5/6, but the group on 4.5/6 contains his toughest opponents.
GM SP Sethuraman (IND) made it 4 wins in a row, beating FM Mads Hansen (DEN). He now plays Rasmussen in round 7, and a another win for Sethuraman will throw the tournament wide open. GM Alexandr Fier (BRA) beat IM Justin Tan (AUS) to also move to 4.5. He was joined by GM Deep Sengupta (IND) and GM Murali Karthikeyan (IND) who both scored the full point in round 6.
IM Bobby Cheng kept his chances of a GM norm alive with a solid draw against GM Benjamin Gledura (HUN). He plays IM Petr Marusenko in today's round, but needs both a good result, and favourable pairings over the last two rounds to get his TPR above 2600.

Full coverage of the tournament (including live commentary if your up early enough in Australia) can be found at www.hastingschess.com